Bathing water rules: what changed in 2025 and 2026

The law that changed

The instrument is the Bathing Water (Amendment) (England and Wales) Regulations 2025, SI 2025/1129, made on 27 October 2025. Most of it came into force in England on 21 November 2025, and all of it in Wales on 1 April 2026.

It covers England and Wales only. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland set their own rules. That is not equivalent cover. Northern Ireland does monitor storm overflows. NI Water had event duration monitors at 31 of the 33 designated bathing waters by May 2026, and 466 monitors operational across its wider network, but it publishes one annual summary, for the 12 months to 31 December 2025. The Republic publishes no storm overflow spill data at all. So nothing can tell you whether an Irish overflow is spilling right now, north or south.

Five "poor" years no longer automatically removes a site

A bathing water classified "poor" for five years running used to be taken off the list. That automatic rule is gone. The Environment Agency or Natural Resources Wales must now consult the local authority and advise ministers whether the site could reach at least "sufficient" within five years of the last published classification.

Removal is still possible. Two routes turn on that feasibility advice and whether the minister accepts or rejects it. A third is where the minister accepts improvement is achievable and the site still fails in time. The fourth is infeasibility advice given without five "poor" years running.

A beach that stays designated after five "poor" years is still a "poor" beach, and the local authority's advice against bathing under regulation 13(1)(b) still applies.

Of 449 bathing waters classified in England on 25 November 2025, 32 were "poor". Of 112 classified in Wales for 2025, 2 were "poor". That cuts both ways. A classification is built from past seasons' samples, so the rest are not sites we can tell you are clean today. An "excellent" beach can still be unsafe the afternoon after a discharge.

New reasons a place can be refused

From 15 May 2026 in England, and 1 April 2026 in Wales, ministers must not list a surface water as a bathing water in three cases. Two rest on agency advice the minister accepts. That reaching at least "sufficient" would be infeasible or disproportionately expensive. Or that a large number of bathers is likely to have a significant adverse impact on the effectiveness of environmental protection measures at or near the water. The third is where the minister has reasonable grounds to believe the water's features pose a likely significant risk to bathers' physical safety.

A river or lake with no designation is not sampled for bathing water quality and has no classification. That is an absence of data, not a clean bill of health.

The season can now move

The default bathing season is still 15 May to 30 September. Ministers can now set different periods for different waters. A determination has to be made before 15 May in the year it takes effect, or, where one is already running for that water, within 12 months of the start of the current period. Ministers must keep a list of the determinations in force.

Sampling for classification only happens inside a site's own season. We could not find a published list of determinations for 2026, so we do not treat 15 May to 30 September as confirmed everywhere. Where a site's season is unconfirmed we say we cannot tell you whether it is being sampled.

Quieter changes to how sites are assessed

Four amendments change the numbers behind a classification.

The agency no longer has to take a first sample shortly before the season starts.

The verification sample after short-term pollution is now optional. The agency used to have to take one additional sample after an incident was presumed over, to check that it was. It may now take one only where it considers this necessary, and it can still discard the samples taken during the incident without that check.

After an abnormal situation, replacing the disregarded samples is now discretionary. The only duty is to reach the minimum sample count before the season ends.

The percentile constant in the classification maths changed from 1.65 to 1.645.

Together these make a classification a weaker guide than before, not a stronger one.

What did not change

None of this touches storm overflow monitoring. Live discharge data comes from water companies' event duration monitors, which sit outside these regulations and do not cover everywhere you might swim. No discharge showing means we have not been told about one, not that there has not been one.